Sony has finally responded to the PS3 hacking situation that occurred back in late December and early January. There was tons of news about and we covered a lot of it but during that time Sony was suspiciously quite. We figured though that they were keeping a lid on things until they had a plan to counter it and today they came out with their official position on the whole PS3 hacking situation. The decision is decisive and PERMANENT. You can read the full statement below but the gist of it is that if you are using it, remove it now and delete any pirated games or you will be banned from PSN for life. Before you ask, they didn’t say how they would do it but I am assuming that they would ban your PS3’s MAC address which is tied to the hardware, so even if you try to use another PSN account they will block the actual machine. As I said they weren’t specific, but to me that is the only real way to properly enforce this the way they are saying. The truth on this situation is that for the majority of PS3 owners this won’t affect them and the people that are using these hacks don’t give a damn about being banned from PSN, they probably never intend to connect to it anyway. Read Sony’s statement below and let us know what you think about this in the comments.

Notice: Unauthorized circumvention devices for the PlayStation 3 system have been recently released by hackers. These devices permit the use of unauthorized or pirated software. Use of such devices or software violates the terms of the “System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System” and the “Terms of Services and User Agreement” for the PlayStation Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions. Violation of the System Software Licence Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system. In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws. Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.

To avoid this, consumers must immediately cease use and remove all circumvention devices and delete all unauthorized or pirated software from their PlayStation 3 systems.

Many PlayStation.Blog readers have asked how we intend to deal with these incidents that they have been reading about in the gaming press, and this is our initial response.

By identifying PlayStation 3 systems that breach our guidelines and terminating their ability to connect to PlayStation Network, we are protecting our business and preserving the honest gameplay experiences that you expect and deserve.

Rest assured, this message does not apply to the overwhelming majority of our users who enjoy the world of entertainment PlayStation 3 has to offer without breaching the guidelines detailed above, and we urge you to continue doing so without fear.

I am the Co-Ceo of DLT Digital Media. We are a company that is focused on developing new and innovative web properties in addition to developing WordPress based web sites for others. But before I was all that, I was a gamer.